


Primum non nocere

by magicpiano



Series: Joly Week 2021 [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Canon Era, Disabled Character, Ethical Dilemmas, Gen, Not Beta Read, disabled joly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29132784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicpiano/pseuds/magicpiano
Summary: When Joly touched the gun for the first time—felt the weight of it in his hands, the chill of metal against his fingertips—he realized he couldn’t do it.It wasn’t that he had lost faith in their cause, nor was it a cowardice fear for his own life. He believed in what they were doing, and he was willing to die for it. He just wasn’t so sure he could kill for it.In his mind, he could see it all—the destruction this tiny object would bring. He could envision the barricade they would build, the blood staining the cobblestone street, the cold dead eyes of the man he had just murdered looking up at him and—
Relationships: Combeferre & Joly (Les Misérables)
Series: Joly Week 2021 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137797
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	Primum non nocere

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Joly week on tumblr.](https://jolyweek.tumblr.com/)
> 
> **Warnings:**  
>  Ableism (mostly self-deprecating)  
> Discussion of death, murder, illness and blood  
> Slight reference to a panic attack?

When Joly touched the gun for the first time—felt the weight of it in his hands, the chill of metal against his fingertips—he realized he couldn’t do it.

It wasn’t that he had lost faith in their cause, nor was it a cowardice fear for his own life. He believed in what they were doing, and he was willing to die for it. He just wasn’t so sure he could kill for it.

In his mind, he could see it all—the destruction this tiny object would bring. He could envision the barricade they would build, the blood staining the cobblestone street, the cold dead eyes of the man he had just  _ murdered _ looking up at him and—

“Joly?”

A firm hand grasped his shoulder startling him back to reality. Joly took a deep stuttering breath and looked up from the weapon in his hands to the worried face of Combeferre.

“Are you ill?” Combeferre asked.

Joly felt vaguely nauseous, but for once he knew with certainty that it had nothing to do with his stomach and everything to do with the deadly object in his grasp.

“No, I’m—” Joly tried to find the right way to phrase this, but it was hard. He wasn’t breathing right and the innocent object he was holding was so heavy. There was no easy way to explain the realization he just had.

“Come on,” Combeferre said, turning him away from the Amis’ growing stockpile of weapons and into a chair. “You don’t feel warm,” Combeferre said, pressing a hand on his forehead. “Would you like a drink?”

“No thank you, I am just thinking,” Joly shook his head. Combeferre sat down in the chair across from his, folding his hands over the table carefully.

“What about?”

“There are things I hate about my studies.”

Combeferre eyed Joly oddly. “You always seemed passionate about your studies.”

“I am. To heal is my life’s passion and my life’s goal.” It was the truth; he knew in his bones that he was  _ meant _ to be a doctor. For all the anxiety it gave him, he knew no other occupation would ever have felt right. But the reality of being a doctor was very different than what he envisioned as a child. “Attending my classes has shown me a side of medicine I despise. I always wished to heal the sick, not the rich, the sick.  _ All _ of the sick.”

“Ah,” Combeferre nodded in understanding. “I have had much the same thoughts. There are so many that cannot afford our aid when they are most in need of it.”

“In all honesty, that is why I started coming to these meetings,” Joly confessed. He had never told the others what led him to their meetings and none of them had ever asked. Before, he thought himself politically active and well informed, but after a few meetings it became obvious just how much more educated on these matters the men he was speaking with were. He was out of his depth in their presence.

“Don’t get me wrong, I never had some secret love for the monarchy, but it didn’t bother me that much either. Tyranny was the way of the world, and I accepted it. I never liked it, but I accepted it.” Joly never imagined himself as being one of the people who changed the world, but that was before he met Enjolras. The man was so fierce and passionate, he believed so fully that anyone could stand up and fight if they wanted to. Enjolras hadn’t scoffed at a volunteer leaning too heavily on his cane for it to be a walking stick, and that was really all the encouragement Joly had needed. “I would go to class and hear my professor talk about the rising death toll and I just—I felt so  _ useless _ . Doctors are supposed to help people, but what were we doing?”

“Neither of us are yet Doctors, Joly,” Combeferre gently reminded him.

“Maybe not,” Joly conceded Combeferre’s point, “but we still know more about the body than the average layman, do we not?”

“I imagine so.”

“Then is it not our responsibility to do what we can?” Joly prodded. “Surely we are better than nothing?”

“You can not save all the sick in Paris.” Combeferre said in the same gentle voice he used when he needed to remind Enjolras that every life in France was not his personal responsibility to save. “There are many of them, and but one of you.”

“I know that. That is why I am here.” Joly gestured around him at the Musain, but his eyes seemed to shift to the table their guns were on of their own accord. He suppressed a shudder. “I cannot cure them all, but perhaps if we change the system—make it so they needn’t pay for a doctor’s services—”

Joly stopped himself sighing. He wasn’t even sure where he was going with this anymore. Society could never work like that, could it? No one would ever agree. Surely, he was just a lost dreamer. At least Combeferre wasn’t laughing at him, instead he seemed curious about what Joly was going to say next.

When Joly didn’t continue, Combeferre prompted, “Joly?”

“I don’t know where I am going with this,” Joly said. “Forgive me.”

Combeferre frowned, seemingly upset that Joly didn’t have more to say. It wasn’t that Joly wasn’t attentive during meetings, but rather he knew where his skills laid and was willing to sit back and let the more politically minded control the conversation.

“For what it is worth, I agree with you,” Combeferre said. This surprised Joly slightly, while the other man was also a medical student who desperately wanted to help others, he was also the realist of their group. “I do what I can, I have visited some of the poor neighborhoods on my days off—give what advice and medicine I can, but in truth, most need what I cannot give them. A hardy meal, a warm bed, and to live in less cramped conditions.”

Joly knew well how many of the poor just might live if they were given the opportunity to get some rest, the one thing they cannot do when they live one day’s pay to the next.

“I have done the same before but—” Joly looked down at his leg with shame. Not for the first time, he cursed his leg and its reluctance to do what he needed it to do. Maybe if it worked right, he could do the kind of volunteer work Combeferre did. “With my leg the way it is, it is difficult to get to class and home every day, regular travel to the other side of the city would be—”

Joly sighed. He was in the opinion that the monarchy was personally at fault for every death due to poverty. After all, if you had the ability to save someone and didn’t, surely you are just as guilty. What did that make him then? The man who hoarded his knowledge to himself because walking was a bit hard… “It all seems so hopeless, doesn’t it?”

“If you believed it was hopeless, you would not be here right now.”

“Yes, you are right, of course.” Joly blushed realizing just how much he had sounded like Grantaire just then. The last thing the Amis needed was another voice of descent.

Their conversation lapsed into silence. Joly tried to organize his thoughts into something coherent, but everything still seemed so jumbled. When he joined the Amis—when all this started—he hadn’t thought about how it would end. Now holding in his lap this tool of destruction he didn’t think he had it in him to use it.

“Tell me Joly,” Combeferre said, breaking Joly out of his musings. “What is this all about?”

Joly glanced back over to their table of guns and bit his lip. “I have dedicated myself to the preservation of life, but now, what we are preparing to do…”

Understanding dawned on Combeferre’s face. “You think you will hesitate?”

“I  _ know _ I will.”

“To take a life is a great burden,” Combeferre said softly. Under the bare light of only a few candles, he almost looked older.

“You speak as if you have experience?” Joly asked, his body unconsciously leaned into the table, hanging off Combeferre’s words.

“No, no, not like that,” Combeferre shook his head furiously. “Not purposely at least. Like I said before, I visit the sick sometimes. I fail them more often than I save them.”

“That is hardly your fault.” Joly said, ignoring the hypocrisy of the statement since he had been similarly blaming himself only moments before.

“Perhaps not,” Combeferre shrugged. “But it still feels like it is, and it is my burden to bare.”

“When the time comes, will you hesitate, Combeferre?” Joly couldn’t help but ask. He had trouble imagining any of his friends killing another, but the others at least seemed ready to cross that bridge. But then they hadn’t taken any vows to do no harm.

“I would very much like to tell you no, but to speak the truth, I do not know. If I shoot, I will never forgive myself, but if I don’t shoot, and someone else is harmed because of it…” Combeferre trailed off, his shoulders taut with nerves. “I do not have second thoughts or doubts in our cause, but there exists a grand difference between knowing what must be done and being the one to pull the trigger.”

Joly could only nod in agreement. He had seen what a bullet could do to a human body, the way it teared the skin apart and left your insides gaping. Surely Combeferre had as well. It was hard to know what they knew, and still be prepared to do such things.

Combeferre slumped back into his seat and looked over towards their weapons as Joly had done a moment ago. It seemed like this was something he had wanted to get off his chest just as much a Joly did.

“I wish things didn’t have to be this way,” Combeferre said wistfully. “I decided to try to think of the fighting as a way of saving the sick. Live in the hope that the violence to come might give way to a world where they can be free.”

“That sounds like a shallow comfort,” Joly said.

“Yes, but it is how I prefer to think about it.”

There was nothing Joly could really say to that. He had always respected Combeferre, he was a kind, intelligent man, but Joly’s perception of him had changed slightly. He was brave, braver than Joly because try as he may, he just wasn’t willing to sacrifice his morals or his vows. But Combeferre was willing to kill, to bloody his hands if the need came to it. He would do everything in his power to avoid it, Joly was sure, but if needs must… Combeferre would do it.

Quietly, Joly confessed, “I joined this revolution with the resolution to save lives. I won’t end this by taking them.”

“I understand.” Combeferre smiled at him, not a hint of blame lacing his features. “I don’t think I can follow you in this path, but I do understand.”

Joly was grateful when Combeferre took the gun from his hands. He didn’t think he could stand to feel its weight burning into his skin a moment longer.

“When the time comes, many will be injured, and they will need a doctor’s care. If you still plan to follow us, even without a gun, then perhaps…?”

Joly breathed a sigh of relief at the offer. He would have loathed to be exiled from their plans because of this.

“That is a job I would take with pride.”

**Author's Note:**

> “Primum non nocere” is latin for "first, do no harm." It is not actually a part of the Hippocratic Oath. Instead it likely comes from another of Hippocrates’ writings: “The physician must…have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely to do good or to do no harm.” The Hippocratic Oath is also not the oath most modern doctors take. What vow they actually take varies by location. Also, the Hippocratic Oath has some iffy ideas by modern morality standards so… That being said most oaths have something along the lines of “do no harm” so I felt the title fit.
> 
> I am not actually sure what oath (if any) was taken by doctors in 1832 France. I did a bit of research but didn’t find an answer. I considered waiting to post this fic till I had found my answer, but I decided that was stupid. I might go scour the internet for answers later, because everyone who knows me knows how much I love to waste time researching things that objectively don’t matter lol. Whatever vow they would have taken they almost certainly haven’t taken it yet, because they are not yet doctors and the oath is usually taken after completing their studies.
> 
> If anyone actually knows the answer to this, do tell me and save me from the research hole!
> 
> This fic is very much my interpretation of Joly and Combeferre, but I thought it would be interesting to examine how they would approach the morality of this situation as doctors.
> 
> My original idea for Joly week was gen(ish) canon era one shots featuring Joly and another character he is not frequently shown with. I am not sure how many I will finish, but I am part way through one for Enjolras and Bahorel, so fingers crossed I can at least finish those two.
> 
> [Here](https://lesbianjolllly.tumblr.com/) is my Les Mis side blog! Feel free to talk to me about this fic, my others or anything else!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Take care and stay safe!
> 
> Also, here is a segment I cut from the fic and have no use for:  
>  _“We are in quite the no win situation?” Joly jabbed in an attempt to lighten the mood. He was supposed to be the cheerful one, it felt like his job to keep things light._  
>  Combeferre smiled slightly but it didn’t meet his eyes.  
> “I have stayed up many nights looking for some peaceful solution, but I have yet to find one.”


End file.
